PAST TIMES: A toast to Fall River's bars gone by

Thursday

Feb 21, 2013 at 11:01 AM

By WILLIAM A. MONIZ

By WILLIAM A. MONIZ

Fall River Spirit Correspondent

Like most gritty industrial cities, Fall River in the mid-20th century had its share of working-class bars, clubs and taverns. In the late 1930s, recovering from the triple whammy of Prohibition, depression, and municipal bankruptcy, the city's watering holes gradually regained their place in the social and cultural fabric of daily life.

From the dine-and-dance nightclubs at the Narrows, to the bars dotting nearly every corner of Bedford and Pleasant streets, to the scores of ethnic social clubs, it wasn't hard to quench one's thirst.

Although a few remain, most of Fall River's iconic saloons have long disappeared from life's ongoing pub-crawl. Many were taken out when the city was gutted by Interstate 195 and Route 79. Others have moved, turned into restaurants, or become otherwise gentrified.

Bedford Street's recently closed Billy's Café may have been the quintessential example of the corner bar. Opened in 1934, only months after the 21st Amendment washed away Prohibition, Billy's attracted a diverse clientele ranging from lawyers, and cops to laborers and factory workers. With its pitchers of beer and signature chourico and chips, the bar became club-like to an army of regulars. No formal membership required; just keep showing up.

Former regular-turned-bartender Ron Berube fondly remembers Billy's for its spirited discussions about politics and sports, the latter especially between Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees fans.

According to Berube, there was only one downside to the bar's dark-paneled ambiance: the broom closet-sized men's room with the original Depression-era plumbing.

"I don't know how they ever got away with that for all these years," Berube says with a laugh.

***

"If I had to live my life over, I'd live over a saloon." — WC Fields.

In Fall River, especially in the Flint Section, many fulfilled Fields' dream. And if they didn't live over one, they probably lived near one. From the 1930s through the 1960s, depending on which year you took count, there were between 25 and 35 bars on or immediately adjacent to Bedford and Pleasant streets alone.

Prior to World War II, an automobile was a luxury beyond the reach of most of Fall River's working class. If you lived any distance from your job, you took a bus. But when you left home heading for the saloon, you walked.

Luckily, there was no shortage of walkable bars available to denizens of the densely packed Flint neighborhood. Beginning near Bogle Hill and strolling west, one could patronize the Green Lantern, the Beacon, the Webster and the aptly — if unimaginatively — named East End Café, to name a few.

Continuing toward downtown there was the Dover Club at Cash Street, the Strand Café at Mason Street and the Canadian Club around the corner on Jenks Street, where you could shoot hoops on the second-floor basketball court warmed by a pot-belly stove.

Further along came the Mahogany, the Massasoit and the Blue Bird at Stafford Square. Before attempting to cross Plymouth Avenue on foot, you could fortify yourself with a stiff one at the Crown Café.

Although few arrests were made, the Flint in the old days would have been home to thousands of cases of WUI — Walking Under the Influence.

One of the Flint's best loved neighborhood bars was the Pleasant Café, presumably named as much for its atmosphere as its address. Opened in the late 1940s on the corner of Quequechan Street, the bar, owned by Antone Albernaz and later his son Manuel, served the shot-and-beer crowd from behind the 20-foot mahogany bar until its closure in 1979.

As young boys, Manuel's sons Richard and Robert were on clean-up duty at the café.

"I could barely see over the bar when I started," Richard says.

Robert, who later tended bar at the cafe, remembers his grandfather and father as sticklers for cleanliness. "They would hide pennies, nickels and dimes in the corners," he said, chuckling. "If they were still there after we swept up, we'd catch hell."

Manuel Albernaz' brother Johnny, an early partner in the Pleasant Street operation, continued in the booze business, later owning and operating the King Phillip Café at the corner of South Main and King Phillip streets.

"It's now Mee Sum's Chinese restaurant," says Robert Albernaz. "And the bar area is still there, just like when my uncle owned it."

Lusitano Restaurant now occupies the site of another former King Phillip Street bar, Harold Miller's Tic Toc Café, which was among the first bars in the city to feature a television set. Tic Toc regulars played softball in the vacant lot across the street, often on Sunday mornings before the bar's "official" noon opening.

***

"The difference between chirping out of turn and a faux pas depends on what kind of a bar you're in." — Wilson Mizner

One city bar where you wanted to keep a low profile, especially if you weren't a regular, was Pleasant Street's Ringside Café. Co-owned by one-time professional boxer Donald "Bobby" Chabot, the Ringside was an informal home to a stable of boxers including well-known local pros Gene LeBlanc and Bobby English.

"Those guys were pretty good," remembers octogenarian Ray "Red" Kitchen, a keen observer of the local fight scene in the 40s and 50s. "They fought some big names."

LeBlanc, a lightweight, had a ring record of 49 wins (28 by knockout), 38 losses, and three draws. Perhaps his highest-profile fight was a 1950 loss to Connecticut's then undefeated Art Suffoletta, "The Stratford Windmill."

English, who also fought in the lightweight division, had 54 lifetime wins, including three out of five bouts against his friend LeBlanc, all fought at the Fall River Casino. Although he lost by knockout in the third round, English went big-time in August, 1945, when he fought two-time featherweight World Champion Sandy Sadler in Providence.

With fight promoters keeping club fighters busy filling out under-cards, there were no long layoffs between matches. In May of 1947, English fought no fewer than five times in New York, New Hampshire, Providence and Fall River.

"I don't know how they did it," Kitchen says. "They seemed to train on alcohol but they had a fight almost once a week."

Another thematic Fall River bar was Al Petrillo's Roma Café in the Academy Building. With an entrance on Second Street, the subterranean Roma may have been the city's first sports bar. A devoted Yankees fan, Petrillo regularly ran train and bus excursions to New York to see the Bronx Bombers as well as New England's original NFL team, the New York Football Giants.

In the golden days of Bobby Orr and the Big Bad Bruins, catching the game on Channel 38's weak UHF signal was no problem at the underground Roma. Petrillo had a special antenna installed high atop the Academy Building roof.

The Roma's Academy Building location had other advantages. In the 1960s, when the Academy Theater switched to X-rated films, patrons would often steal up the Roma's hidden rear stairway to catch the show from the theater's balcony section.

***

"Don't drink at the hotel bar, that's where I do my drinking." — Casey Stengel

In post-Prohibition Fall River, through World War II and well into the 1950s, THE hotel bar in Fall River was at the Mellen. Billed as "Fall River's Leading Hotel," the Mellen's stylish Art Deco-style bar was a popular downtown stop after the theater or a movie.

"Meet me at the Mellen" meant only one specific spot: the bar.

Before the advent of dedicated function restaurants, everything from beauty pageants to weddings to graduation parties were held at the Mellen. Having fallen upon hard times in the 1960s, the hotel closed and served as Fall River's City Hall from 1962 until the completion of the new Government Center in the 1970s.

***

"Fortune knocks at every man's door once in a life, but in a good many cases the man is in a neighboring saloon and does not hear her." — Mark Twain

There was at least one Fall River watering hole where fortune frequently knocked and was often heard. North Main Street's venerable Quequechan Club, formed in 1894 by a group of wealthy businessmen, was home to generations of Fall River's industrial, banking, and political movers and shakers.

At the turn of the 20th century, the club served as a restaurant and banquet hall for male members only, and it was not until the 1970s that women were permitted to enter the dining room without an escort. It's safe to say that many business deals large and small were consummated over cocktails and cigars at the private club's bars.

The "Q Club" lives on. Now no longer catering solely to Fall River's elite, (although still private, membership fees are nominal) new owners Kerri and Leo Sousa have restored the former William Mason estate to its Victorian-era beauty while adding some modern touches.

More importantly, the club's bars are up and running.

As Fall River's old-style saloons disappear, new versions are springing up to fill the void. In addition to the resurgent Quequechan club, and Franklin Street's newly renovated Belmont Club, three new establishments have recently opened in the city. Jerry Remy's and the Red Cedar restaurants at Commonwealth Landing, and the Tipsy Toboggan on Ferry Street, bring new vibrancy to the Fall River bar/restaurant scene.

The corner bars might be near extinction, but it's still easy to find your own corner at a new generation of Fall River watering holes where, as the "Cheers" theme goes, everybody knows your name.

This story is the latest installment in Past Times, an occasional series about Fall River the way it was and the way people remember it.